Field of the Invention
The disclosed invention relates generally to an embodiment of Secure Objects without encrypted memory, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, relating to a use of Secure Objects to protect virtual machines in a system that supports the concurrent execution of multiple virtual machines, and to the use of Secure Objects to protect individual applications in a virtual machine from other software including the other software in the virtual machine.
Description of the Related Art
The first patent application listed above introduced the concept of a ‘Secure Object’ comprising code and data for a computer system that is cryptographically protected from the other software on the system, and a computer architecture for supporting such Secure Objects. The other patent applications listed introduced additional structures and mechanisms to protect the confidentiality and integrity of Secure Objects from other software including ‘malware’ that an attacker may be able to introduce into a targeted computer system.
The present invention provides support for Secure Objects in a way that does not require encryption or decryption every time data moves between a CPU and an external memory and thus provides support for Secure Objects in a way that is more efficient and that can provide higher performance.